meat

The Obama administration on June 2 convened the White House Forum on Antibiotic Stewardship, “to bring together key human and animal health constituencies involved in antibiotic stewardship.” The White House billed this meeting—to which more than 150 companies were invited—as furthering previous steps on antibiotic “stewardship” including the administration’s veterinary feed directive. While the meeting’s agenda was broader than just veterinary antibiotic use in livestock production, the tangible actions coming out of it were all targeted at livestock and meat.

The veterinary feed directive was an edict from the Food and Drug Administration, which oversees animal and livestock feed. It was issued in December 2013 and finalized in conjunction with the White House Summit. Its goal is to phase out the use of medically important antibiotics in livestock production by 2016. Indeed, curbing the sub-therapeutic use of antibiotics in livestock feed has been a cause celebre for the administration and the food nanny crowd for decades.

Indeed, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have concluded that the most acute problem is “poor antimicrobial stewardship among humans.” The most resistant organisms found in hospitals originate in the hospitals themselves, according to the CDC’s director, Dr. Tom Frieden. Also, people who don’t complete their full prescription of antibiotics add to microbial resistance.

In reality, the vast majority of antibiotics used by livestock are not those used in human medicines, and the veterinary antibiotics which are used in livestock production are strictly regulated by the FDA, are subject to strict withdrawal periods prior to slaughter, and, moreover, undergo exacting residue monitoring of the meat derived from livestock and poultry that were administered antibiotics. Regarding livestock production, the CDC’s Dr. Frieden has said, “we continue to promote the concept that if an animal is sick using antibiotics to treat that animal is obviously important. We want to increase the rational use of antibiotics.”

The livestock, meat, feed, and veterinary industries have voluntarily complied with the administration’s veterinary feed directive since the beginning, in order to do their part for health, safety, and, frankly, to meet a growing consumer demand driven by the constant discussion of the issue in the press and popular culture. So much so, that FDA issued a press release in March 2014, four months after the initial voluntary directive was issued, stating they were “encouraged by the strong response” from the industry.

The White House event marked the release of the final version of the directive. It noted that all 25 veterinary drug companies have committed to implement the new practices, which prohibit medically important antibiotics being used for production purposes, and will require animal producers to obtain authorization from a licensed veterinarian to use them for prevention, control or treatment of a specifically identified disease. The president could have declared victory for his initiative, and sat back to enjoy the plaudits of being a consensus builder on this controversial issue. Rather, he took the opportunity to stir more controversy.

"Walmart recalls donkey meat in China,” announced a headline on FoxNews.com last week. The Scrapbook, for one, was incensed: How dastardly to lace edible meat with donkey! We hungered for more information: What were the tainted goods? Were the “100 percent beef” hamburgers at Walmart’s Beijing branch strangely Eeyore-like? Or perhaps it was the “100 percent pork” sausages at the chain’s Shanghai outlet that tasted oddly of burro?

One inspector averaged 13 hours a day, 365 days a year.

If overworked employees are more likely to commit errors, then the consumers who ended up with the meat inspected by one particular Department of Agriculture (USDA) food safety inspector may have cause for concern. A recent audit found one Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) employee averaged almost thirteen hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year in fiscal year 2012. While this was the most extreme case, the incidence of food safety employees working extraordinary hours is by no means rare. Over 400 of the 10,000 inspectors averaged in excess of 60 hours per week, including 14 averaging more than 75 hours, and another three who averaged over 80 hours per week.

If we aren't supposed to eat animals, why are they made of meat?

Over at Washington Monthly, Kathleen Geier writes about how The Ethicist columnist at the New York Times magazine is promoting an essay contest where readers argue that it is, in fact, ethical to continue eating meat. Only it seems that Geier is not amused about who is judging the contest: